It took me two full weeks to arrive in Bangalore. And even a few days more before I could start to think about an art project. It just needed some time to fit into the new situation, to accept the different way of living and to get rid of existing convictions, concepts and former perspectives. I felt busy and stressed with finding access to this city, which seemed to be overloaded with an unknown intensity. The Goethe programme welcomed us warmly and shipped us to a range of cultural hot spots in the city. We met visionary people, official partners, activists, initiatives, collectives, artists and architects, who shared with us their inside views and talked about their ideas, achievements, problems and solutions. The schedule was straight forward, and of course, apart from our private trips and explorations in the city, we spent some extra time in bed with fever, sickness and stomach irritations. Nevertheless, this wonderful package of useful information and inspirational overviews made it quite hard to get into a personal flow towards an own rhythm, own experiences and own ideas. More and more I realised that six weeks in Bangalore would be over soon.
I started to walk through the city taking hundreds of random photographs without special motives and out of focus. I just pressed the button without looking through the lens, just blind shots out of the pocket. It seemed just impossible to concentrate on something, even to see anything and to picture it properly. There is too much to see, you can’t recognise anything. And the narrow streets of Chickpet were too busy to rest somewhere. Everything moves, changes and flows constantly. And it felt quite uncomfortable to stop for a moment just to look at the scenery from a step outside. You just can’t get any distance, you are always in the middle of the crowd. Every attempt of pausing and relaxing meant an interruption of this floating movement and was even more stressful than to swim with the stream. I felt the vibrancy of this place, this different concept of the public, the power of the masses. No tourists, no flaneurs. Everybody had to do something, was part of some business, belonged to this spot. All the people were here for a good reason. Except me. I was just lost. But I knew I wanna do an art piece exactly here, in the centre of this chaotic flow, but I had no clue what it could be.
I started working in the studio at 1 Shanthi Road, the only quiet place in town. A friendly island, a home with nice people and an open atmosphere. At some point I just had to act. It was time. The date for the exhibition was already fixed, Goethe wanted to know my plans and even asked for a budget calculation. So far I had just collected all these impressions, met all these people and made tons of unsharp photographs. OMG, I had to put out something! I wanted to work on order and chaos, but I was part of this chaos myself. I had to tidy it up. I reorganised the furniture in the studio, changed all positions of beds, cupboards, shelves and tables, cleaned the floor and looked at my photos: What you really see often in Bangalore are women wiping the dusty streets with a very short type of simple broom, at least just 50 cm long, made from branches. I really asked myself why they never use longer brooms with a stick, which would be way more comfortable to work with? I found the dirty old broom from 1 Shanthi Road in the basement, unbound its branches and played Mikado with it. The immediate result was a brushwood sculpture like a star. This was the first time I thought, yes, here it is: the dirt, the moment, the social impact, the chaos, the new order, the fragility, the beauty. Literally it all appeared in the guise of a fallen star. Problem: The housekeeper missed the broom…
© Ingo Gerken
From this moment on I saw potentially sculptures everywhere. I started to experiment with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, eggs, etc. which I found in the busy city market. Actually here in the market, on improvised tables and in the dust, they were already piled up like astonishing geometric sculptures, like shiny, fresh and colourful pyramids, squares and polyeders. Like a contest of natural symmetry, minimalism and abstract perfection, proudly presented and carefully displayed by professional sellers. The mess of the city market turned into a secret art fair. And I wanted to take part in it with a public sculpture.
But what can you add here, what gesture can be the right one, coming from Europe to India as quite a privileged artist, generously supported by a cultural institute? How to handle this situation, this adventure? How to celebrate this special opportunity, this chance to work here and to learn from a different reality in a foreign context? What are the dimensions, the risks, the problems? Who needs my view, who wants to know about my personal struggles, my thoughts and questions here? I haven't found answers, but at least I realised something and found spontaneous help and advice from many people in the streets and shops and from some boys from the neighbourhood. The project led me through the entire city searching for the right material. I built something big and light and shiny. It mirrored its surrounding, absorbed it, split it into pieces and reflected the colours in all directions. It was something to carry around. It moved through the city in different ways, it caught the sunlight and the darkness. Absurd and spectacular on the one side, nearly invisible on the other. Something like a meteorite from outer space, a crystal, a kaleidoscope, a geometrical figure, a perfect and universal form. Some basic structure, but complicated and strange at the same time. I called it “Platonischer Antikörper” and I’ve just thrown this sculpture into the flow, like a paper boat riding on a wild river.
After the final exhibition in Bangalore we saw the great Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kochi and travelled further to see some other parts of Kerala. My photographs got sharper as soon as we entered the beautiful peripheries, reached the natural landscapes and explored some wider horizons of India. On the way north to Goa, I thought about the sense and senselessness of artistic intervention and developed a lot of new ideas for follow-up projects. I was absolutely sure that I would come back one day to go a few steps further. But finally reaching the beach at Kakolem I just decided to open a coconut, look out over the Indian Ocean, and write down the very last words of this journey:
© Ingo Gerken
